Brief & Initial thoughts

We have been given the task of creating a two minute opening to a film that we have to create. In essence, we have to come up with the idea for a feature length film thinking about plot and characters but only create the first two minutes.

We were told that we could create a film of any genre and instantly I thought that I could make an action or sci-fi film as these are my favourite film genres and therefore the genres I know the most about. I know that there is going to be a lot of hard work and dedication involved to obtain a good grade for my AS but I feel confident and am ready for the challenge.

I'm really excited about this project and hope my final production turns out well!

'Fargo' & Luhr's article

After finishing watching ‘Fargo’ in Monday’s lesson, we read an article by William Luhr about it. To start with, the article summarises the film, telling the reader all about the obscure thriller setting and introducing a few of the characters. After talking about other thrillers and the genre of film noir, the article returns to talking about Fargo and gives a much more in depth analysis of the film, setting and characters. It shows how the Coen brothers tried to take a different approach to film noir by adding extremely unusual elements to this so-called ‘thriller’ film.

The setting, for start, is the total opposite of a film noir setting. With noir meaning black, it seems odd that the primary colour in ‘Fargo’ is white. The large amount of snow however creates, if anything, a more eerie atmosphere. It makes the misc-en-scène of each shot far more sinister and ominous as it creates a fog which nobody can quite see through until they are actually passing through it. This could be an indication of how each of the characters don’t really know what they are doing or where they are going throughout their story until the very end when the fog clears.

Carl (Steve Buscemi)

The article also makes a point of highlighting the Coen brothers’ use of grisly humour, which ultimately, makes the film overall very comical and the article tells of how ‘Fargo’ was put into a list of the top 100 film comedies by the American Institute in 2000. The article gives an example of this kind of humour by telling the reader about one of the characters (Carl, played by Steve Buscemi) who gets shot in the face at close range and yet still manages to chatter away aimlessly, cursing and getting ever more angry. Somehow, the Coen brothers have managed to take a film noir, make it predominantly white and include humour.

Marge (Frances McDormand)

Another way in which ‘Fargo’ challenges the thriller genre is highlighted on page five of the article. It tells the reader of Marge (Frances McDormand), a pregnant police sheriff who wears bulky and unstylish clothing who is presented as quite a comic character but in fact turns out to be the non-stereotypical heroine of the film.

However, while the Coen brothers have successfully managed to challenge the thriller genre, ‘Fargo’ also includes many clichéd ideals. One of these is the two ‘bad guys’. Carl (Buscemi) is small and funny looking, swears a lot and never shuts up. He likes to think that he is the brains behind everything although there are many moments in ‘Fargo’ where he acts stupidly. The other, Gaear (Peter Stormare), is tall, and often referred to as ‘the Marlboro man’ purely because he is always smoking. He is incredibly violent (he is the one to initiate the homicides) yet very quiet and mysterious. All in all, two very stereotypical villains. Another ideal stereotypical of many thrillers I’ve seen is that one villain kills off his partner. In the case of ‘Fargo’ this is done by Gaear killing off Carl by severing his neck with an axe and then putting his body in a wood chipper.

Gaear (Peter Stormare) with Carl in the wood chipper

I thought that overall, 'Fargo' was quite a good movie although I personally would not market it as a thriller film. The Coen brothers' use of grisly humour and other elements that challenge the thriller genre makes it unclear of what type of film it is meant to be. However, I believe that the Coen brothers have managed to establish an 'auteur' just like Alfred Hitchcock in which that have basically created their own genre of films. If you went to the cinema to see 'True Grit', you wouldn't say that you are going to see a western film, you would say that you are going to see a Coen brothers film. And i think that Joel and Ethan deserve a lot of credit and admiration for their work as they are always thinking outside the box and wondering how they can challenge typical genre ideals. For that, they are a credit to film history.

Joel & Ethan Coen

The genre of thriller & Alfred Hitchcock



As thriller movies become ever more popular and new director are constantly thinking ‘outside the box’ and defying convention, it’s not surprising to see lots of sub-genres emerge from the original thriller genre. With today’s array of film, we see:

Alien from the movie 'Alien'

-Action/ adventure thrillers (like the four Die Hard movies)
-Science-fiction thrillers (like Alien and Predator)
-Crime-caper thrillers (like Lock, stock and two smoking barrels)
-Western-thrillers (like High Noon)
-Film-noir thrillers (like Double Indemnity)

-Romantic comedy-thrillers (like Mr & Mrs Smith)

It just goes to show how varied genre can be. I don’t doubt that more sub-genres will be invented by new and upcoming directors. However, thrillers always tend to follow a stereotype in one way or another. Usually it is with the characters. You find that in thrillers, there will always be dark characters like convicts, stalkers, assassins and other psychopaths, trying to hurt an innocent victim. However, thrillers are different from crime purely for the fact that crime focuses more on the gangster, crime or detective, while thrillers are much more consistent in focusing on the suspense and danger of it all.

Alfred Hitchcock

One of the most famous thriller directors is Alfred Hitchcock, a British director, considered the ‘auteur’ of the thriller genre. He was nominated for five awards but never won. In his movies, he usually paired a leading actor with a pretty blonde female, one of which he made play an innocent victim in a strange situation of which they would have to overcome. Hitchcock would also capitalize on a ‘red herring’ element to catch the viewers’ attention and move the film on throughout its course. It’s been said that Hitchcock is also very good at manipulating his audience’s fears, which is perhaps why he had become renowned as a brilliant thriller director.

Hitchcock's 'Vertigo'

Below are a couple of posters of his most famous films.

Hitchcock's 'Psycho'

Hitchcock's 'The Birds'

What makes a good character?

There are many answers to the question ‘what makes a good character?’ and so, with a little bit of research, I have devised a summary.

A good character carries the narrative. Absent of this and the story is dead. The protagonist has to be believable, multi-dimensional, complex, someone to which a reader can and want to relate. Viewers want to inhabit the character, feel their pain, their happiness, their fears. Viewers want to see what the character sees, smell what they smell. Viewers want to learn from the character and view the world from their prism. In other words, the character has to form an emotional bond with the viewer and stand out. A good character makes you forget they only live within the confines of their world. Their world and their experiences, no matter how unlikely, are as tangible as our own because their character has been so thoroughly developed.

I am going to analyse three different characters that have clearly left a lasting impression upon the film world.

1) The Joker – played by Heath Ledger

"Some men," remarks Michael Caine's wise old butler, Alfred, "just want to watch the world burn." Which is about as succinct a summary of Heath Ledger's Joker as you can get. There is no rhyme to him, no reason - just an appetite for anarchy, for chaos and for destruction that marks him out as the most terrifying screen psycho in years. Jack Nicholson's Joker was, arguably, even more psychotic than Ledger's, but where he played the white-faced, red-lipped, green-haired clown for laughs, Ledger's aim was to slip, insidiously, under your skin, with his flickering serpent's tongue, penchant for close-up kills and dead, cold eyes.  

In the opening scene of ‘The Dark Knight’ we, as an audience are not aware of the Joker’s presence at the scene, only that he is involved with the crime being committed. Towards the end of the scene, The Joker reveals himself to a victim of the bank robbery and through the first shot of The Joker, an image of an iconic villain has been imprinted into the minds of the film viewers. The basis of a clown, a usually happy and fun being, for his villainous façade provides a somewhat scarier picture due to the fact that it takes a happy character with whom people associate happy memories from circuses or parties into something terrifying and malicious. The opening provides the audience with a limited amount of knowledge about The Joker and this makes the audience a little insecure due to the lack of knowledge being conveyed about the character.

2) Captain Jack Sparrow – played by Johnny Depp

Jack Sparrow is a character that has obliterated the stereotypical pirate image with his unique look and personality. Inspired by rock legend Keith Richards, Johnny Depp persuaded the production team at Pirates of the Caribbean to alter the original designs for the character so that he ended up looking the way he does in the movies. What makes Captain Jack Sparrow such a good character is how he can be dastardly and devilish and not attach the hurt or the weak. The character of Jack Sparrow deliberately slurs his words and walks with a drunken stagger to trick people into underestimating him. He has a lightning quick wit and he strings words together extremely well, so good in fact he can talk his way out of anything! In all four movies he diabolically tricked every character to do what he wanted. Most didn't realize it until later or never found out they were nothing more but mere "chess pieces" to him. Jack Sparrow is the one of the only characters who can be "weird" and get away making the viewer think it’s cool and funny at the same time – like when he is obsessing over his name, his hat, and a jar of dirt.

In the opening few minutes of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, the viewer is introduced to him when his ship is sinking into Port Royal. His encounter with the dock master shows the viewer that he clearly isn’t a member of normal society in Port Royal. His extravagant costume and shaggy hair contrast heavily with the dock master’s neat and trim appearance and Sparrow’s bartering shows how he wants to remain anonymous. This creates curiosity in the viewer and the urge to find out more about this character.

3) Darth Vader – played by David Prowse. Voice by James Earl Jones

Darth Vader is one of the most iconic villains in film history, but why? He is everything that scares you as a child, cutting a huge, imposing figure, wearing doom-laden black, and breathing through some kind of ominous respirator. The masterstroke behind Vader's design is the mask. The cold, expressionless cover is difficult to read, and makes for a much scarier experience than a human face can give. Having the bass tones of James Earl Jones as the voice adds to the daunting demeanour of the character and makes almost every sentence sound threatening.

In the opening of ‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’, the viewer sees three space shuttles  entering an enormous but half built space station (the later named ‘Deathstar’). The viewer is made aware that the person entering the space station is important due to the fact that troops gather outside the shuttle in the landing bay arranged like soldiers ready for a procession. The dark figure of Darth Vader emerges from the shuttle and walks through the arranged soldiers accompanied by the commander of the space station. The audience are made aware the Darth Vader is not the highest in command as he talks of the ‘emperor’ but the audience can tell by the attitude of the commander that Vader is of higher rank than him.

What are the conventions of a genre?

Action films usually include high energy, big-budget physical stunts and chases, possibly with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises (floods, explosions, natural disasters, fires, etc.), non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, often two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' - all designed for pure audience escapism. Includes the James Bond 'fantasy' spy/espionage series, martial arts films, and so-called 'blaxploitation' films. A major sub-genre is the disaster film.

Adventure films are usually exciting stories, with new experiences or exotic locales, very similar to or often paired with the action film genre. They can include traditional swashbucklers, serialized films, and historical spectacles (similar to the epics film genre), searches or expeditions for lost continents, "jungle" and "desert" epics, treasure hunts, disaster films, or searches for the unknown.

Comedies are light-hearted plots consistently and deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters. This section describes various forms of comedy through cinematic history, including slapstick, screwball, spoofs and parodies, romantic comedies, black comedy (dark satirical comedy), and more.

Crime (gangster) films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or mobsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life. Criminal and gangster films are often categorized as film noir or detective-mystery films - because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms. This category includes a description of various 'serial killer' films.

Dramas are serious, plot-driven presentations, portraying realistic characters, settings, life situations, and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Usually, they are not focused on special-effects, comedy, or action, Dramatic films are probably the largest film genre, with many subsets. See also melodramas, epics (historical dramas), or romantic genres. Dramatic biographical films (or "biopics") are a major sub-genre, as are 'adult' films (with mature subject content).

Epics include costume dramas, historical dramas, war films, medieval romps, or 'period pictures' that often cover a large expanse of time set against a vast, panoramic backdrop. Epics often share elements of the elaborate adventure films genre. Epics take an historical or imagined event, mythic, legendary, or heroic figure, and add an extravagant setting and lavish costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle, dramatic scope, high production values, and a sweeping musical score. Epics are often a more spectacular, lavish version of a biopic film. Some 'sword and sandal' films (Biblical epics or films occuring during antiquity) qualify as a sub-genre.

Horror films are designed to frighten and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films feature a wide range of styles, from the earliest silent Nosferatu classic, to today's CGI monsters and deranged humans. They are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not usually synonymous with the horror genre. There are many sub-genres of horror: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. See this site's Scariest Film Moments and Scenes collection - illustrated.

Musical/dance films are cinematic forms that emphasize full-scale scores or song and dance routines in a significant way (usually with a musical or dance performance integrated as part of the film narrative), or they are films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography. Major subgenres include the musical comedy or the concert film.

Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative - complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters ('things or creatures from space'), either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc. They are sometimes an offshoot of fantasy films, or they share some similarities with action/adventure films. Science fiction often expresses the potential of technology to destroy humankind and easily overlaps with horror films, particularly when technology or alien life forms become malevolent, as in the "Atomic Age" of sci-fi films in the 1950s.

War (and anti-war) films acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting (against nations or humankind) on land, sea, or in the air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. War films are often paired with other genres, such as action, adventure, drama, romance, comedy (black), suspense, and even epics and westerns, and they often take a denunciatory approach toward warfare. They may include POW tales, stories of military operations, and training.

Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry - a eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier. They are one of the oldest, most enduring genres with very recognizable plots, elements, and characters (six-guns, horses, dusty towns and trails, cowboys, Indians, etc.). Over time, westerns have been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and spoofed.

The Importance of Genre

Genre is a concept made up of different elements which define a type of film. Each genre can usually be established at the start of a film by certain iconography, music, narrative and misc-en-scène. All these elements can build up in the mind of the viewer and from all this, the viewer can subconsciously think about what kind of movie it will be like and the kind of things they may expect. For example in Cabin Fever (directed by Eli Both), the viewer can build up the idea of the film purely by the title sequence. Combining the denotation and connotation can allow the viewer to predict what is going to happen in the film. The bold black font with hooks on looks sinister and can infer that something horrific is going to happen.

The sounds that you hear over the opening credits go from birdsong to the buzzing of flies, suggesting the presence of something rotting. From this, the audience knows that something or someone is going to die. The background image also suggests the idea of death as it starts as a plain white background, perhaps suggesting purity and innocence of what could happen, then slowly turning a pus-like yellow, perhaps conveying infection (the title of ‘Cabin Fever’ also suggests infection) and finally diffusing to red so that the audience immediately knows that there is going to be death and a high body count.

But it is not only the opening of the film that can give the audience an indication of what the film will be about. DVD covers can often give away clues as to what will happen in the movie. In class, we have started to watch ‘Fargo’ (directed and produced by the Coen Brothers) and we also studied the DVD cover.

The large, bright red title indicates that ‘Fargo’ is an important character and while it isn’t a blood red, the use of the colour red could have been used to indicate that there may be some danger of which the characters of the film must overcome. Also, the use of the names, Frances McDormand, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, which are well known names on the cover indicate – particularly of the Coen brothers – that you know to expect the unexpected. In addition, the cover image show two figures in isolation and from this, the audience can work out that the movie is set in a cold part of America (from the snow and the badge on the woman’s coat) and that a crime has occurred that has to be solved (from the dead body and the fact that the woman has a police officer badge on her hat). The fact that the movie is an eighteen suggests that there may be strong langue, violence and perhaps sexual content. While people say that you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can certainly judge a film by it’s cover.

The Coen Brothers

Today in class, we watched a few clips from 'Dawn of the Dead' (directed by Zack Snyder) , 'Cabin Fever' (directed by Eli Roth) and 'Taken' (directed by Pierre Morel) so that we could learn how a genre is established in the opening of a film. We saw that a horror film takes far less time to get into the main storyline than a thriller although you can learn a lot about the characters in each type of film just from the opening. From the horror films we could usethe clues provided in the misc-en-scene to predict the rest of the film.

I then researched the Coen brothers' filmography:

1984 – BLOOD SIMPLE – directed by Joel Coen

1987 – RAISING ARIZONA – directed by Joel Coen

1990 – MILLER’S CROSSING – directed by Joel Coen

1991 – BARTON FINK – directed by Joel Coen – 3 Academy Award nominations, 1 Golden Globe nomination

1994 – THE HARDSUCKER PROXY – directed by Joel Coen

1996 – FARGO – directed by Joel Coen – 7 Academy Award nominations, 2 Academy Awards, 4 Golden Globe nominations, 6 BAFTA nominations, 1 BAFTA

1998 – THE BIG LEBOWSKI – directed by Joel Coen

2000 – O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? – directed by Joel Coen – 2 Academy Award nominations, 2 Golden Globe nominations, 1 Golden globe, 5 BAFTA nominations

2001 – THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE – directed by Joel Coen – 1 Academy Award nomination, 3 Golden Globe nominations, 1 BAFTA nomination, 1 BAFTA

2003 – INTOLERABLE CRUELTY – directed by Joel Coen

2004 – THE LADYKILLERS – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen

2007 – NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen – 8 Academy Award nominations, 4 Academy Awards, 4 Golden Globe nominations, 2 Golden Globes, 9 BAFTA nominations, 3 BAFTAs

2008 – BURN AFTER READING – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen – 2 Golden Globe nominations, 3 BAFTA nominations

2009 – A SERIOUS MAN – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen – 2 Golden Globe nominations, 3 BAFTA nominations

2010 – TRUE GRIT – directed by Joel & Ethan Coen – 10 Academy Award nominations, 8 BAFTA nominations, 1 BAFTA

So in total, the Coen brothers have earnt: 33 Academy Award nominations, 6 Academy Awards, 17 Golden Globe nominations, 3 Golden Globes, 36 BAFTA nominations, 6 BAFTAs.

Welcome to my AS Media blog

I've only been doing media studies for a few weeks but there are many things that I have already learnt.



1) The idea of misc-en-scene: how an image looks on the screen and the position of characters and props in the shot. We watched videos posted on 'the Spider' and made notes.



2) Different types of shot: including full shot, medium shot & close up etc. We watched videos posted on 'the Spider' and made notes.



3) The importance of creativity, originality and performance. For this,we watched projects of past students for ideas of creativity, a video from Matt Harding (posted below) for originality and a clip from the 2009 Oscars where Hugh Jackman performed an 'opening number'.

4) How dialogue isn't needed to tell the story as body language can be far more powerful.



5) Film is visual medium.